Many types of probiotic products with desired traits are produced throughout the world and delivered to the target recipients. With the classical view in mind, the bacteria need to be live to exert their probiotic effects. Indeed, it is the case in most of the situations. Also, the regulatory guidelines of WHO state that the probiotics need to be administered at some minimum CFU. Wouldn’t it be fantastic then if the probiotics could be quantified? With the advancement in scientific technology it is now quite a reality to quantify the probiotic strains. The dairy products besides containing the useful microflora might contain many undesired fungi, bacteria and viruses. The quantification methods thus employed should be specific enough to distinguish between the useful and undesired bacterial cells and their strains. Refinements in the traditional methods of bacterial cell quantification has brought about a revolution in this field and one can understand what they are consuming as also their relative amounts to maintain the proper probiotic usage guidelines. [Read more…]